


The Alibi Incident

by Eerie



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: M/M, Slash, Victorian Attitudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-14 08:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eerie/pseuds/Eerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raffles and Bunny attend a dinner party as a cover for their latest heist. While Raffles is more than happy to improvise on an otherwise dull evening, Bunny fears the results of his partner's recklessness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Alibi Incident

The last colorful streaks of daylight had long begun to fade into the broken London skyline when Raffles and Bunny finally found their way by hansom to the long, sweeping drive of Lord and Lady Milburn’s mansion. Unsurprisingly, they were the last to arrive, though the other guests were congenial enough as they sipped their drinks in the main hall. Greetings were exchanged, cloaks and hats taken, and wine redistributed all around.

Bunny quickly set to work on his glass once he had taken it; he didn’t know a soul in the house and felt quite uncomfortable about the fact. Raffles, naturally, knew everyone. Yet as long as he had Raffles, at least, Bunny’s anxiety was tempered (though the alcoholic fortification helped). One of the servants had made another round with a tray full of wine just as Bunny had unceremoniously polished off the dregs of his glass, and he swapped the empty for a full one. 

Raffles gave him an amused look and leaned in close to whisper in his ear. “Nervous are we, old boy?”

“Not in the least,” Bunny mumbled under his breath and took a lengthy sip.

Raffles snorted his doubt but continued in his softest tone. “Remember, tonight is simply an alibi. We don’t have to dazzle anyone here with our wit. Just get through the damned bloody ordeal.”

Bunny nodded, slightly more at ease with Raffles’s reaffirmed allegiance. He couldn’t help musing on the job they’d undertaken not less than an hour ago on the house of Lady Payton (who was, of course, currently in attendance at the mansion and donning a fraction of her sparkling fineries; they had taken another hefty portion from her boudoir). The jewels he’d pocketed seemed to burn his thigh through the material of his trousers when the Lady turned and gave him a weak, disinterested smile. Bunny returned it, raised his glass to his lips, and quickly turned away before he could blush guilty.

Several moments later, Raffles, who had been chatting with a few of the guests as well as the Lord of the house, returned to Bunny’s side.

“Be warned: this might possibly be the dullest engagement of the season,” Raffles said around the rim of his glass. “Not quite the ideal way to work off the adrenaline of the main event, eh?”

“I should say not,” Bunny agreed with a secret smile.

Dinner was announced and the guests retired to the dining hall. The table within was long but modestly narrow, adorned in dishes and cutlery of a distinctively expensive variety. Raffles’s eyes twinkled as he admired them.

They were all seated in the traditional alternating male-female fashion, and Bunny wound up placed directly across from Raffles. The first course was brought in and served with a pomp and flair wholly exaggerated to the size of the crowd, and Raffles threw an intensely humored glance in Bunny’s direction. 

Still, the soup was good and the conversation remained steady; though the table talk had begun as an affair to include the entire group—or as much of it as could be while Lord Milburn boasted of his hunting exploits—it soon broke up into separate intimate banters between neighbors. Bunny, however, presently found himself in the awkward position of having his elbow-partners already engaged in talk in opposite directions. Instead of intruding into their spheres, however, he casually eavesdropped on Raffles’s ruthless flirting with the blonde in the ivory dress who sat pert on his friend’s right. Though Bunny admitted that the girl was unquestionably feminine and really rather becoming, her boisterous laughter was, unfortunately, quite like that of a man’s. Bunny had to quell himself from bursting out laughing at the cruel but amusing dichotomy. When he looked up again, smiling to himself, he found Raffles gazing at him with something akin to impish delight in his eyes. Bunny could only hazard at what it had meant.

The soup bowls were presently cleared away and the main course brought in. With it came a multitude of savory smells that promised, if nothing else, an all-around decent gustatory experience for the evening.

As the last of the servants left the tableside, talk went on in the same manner as before. Bunny might as well have been invisible for all the attention he received yet again. Apart from Raffles, who kept shooting him glances that seemed to always command his attention to that side of the table, he was not even acknowledged but for having his wine glass occasionally refilled by the stoic footman. 

And then something gradually slid up his leg beneath the table.

Bunny’s first reaction was to freeze like frightened animal. But when the foreign object stealthily maneuvered its way into his crotch, he jerked away and bumped the table so hard the dishes and the silver jangled. Everyone paused their chatter and looked to him with bewildered expressions.

Bunny smiled and apologized several times with a feebly dismissive wave and no further explanation before realigning himself back into his chair. Stonily he set his attention back on his plate as if nothing whatsoever had happened. Everyone went back to his or her own business, but not before sparing him a disapproving glance.

Once Bunny had settled back at the table proper, the sensation was upon his calf again. He wasted no time in shooting an incredulous glance at Raffles, who was currently smirking at Bunny in his most devil-may-care manner.

“Your friend’s a bit odd, isn’t he? Is he feeling alright?” the blonde asked Raffles in a less than discreet tone.

“Oh yes, he’s fine,” Raffles replied without taking his eyes from Bunny’s. “He’s just been a bit…tense lately. Stressed nerves and whatnot.”

That vague explanation seemed to satisfy her, Bunny noticed with nothing short of bristling irritation. The foot slid upward to the junction between his legs once more, and Bunny watched as Raffles conspiratorially winked at him and made a quick show of licking his lower lip. In absolute plain sight! Bunny looked about, but no one seemed to be paying either of them any attention in that one tentative moment. He knew, however, that it was only due to simple luck, and that Raffles was in one of his terribly reckless moods. Bunny’s heart quickened in panic.

But Bunny was too stunned to act on his anxiety when it finally fully hit home that yes, it really _was_ Raffles’s unshod foot brazenly toeing at him though his trousers with only the thin, not quite lap-length tablecloth to veil the scene from his neighbors. Indeed, if either of them had looked to him at that point, they would have surely seen what was going on. He had half a mind to fly out of his chair and run from the manor, but was instead pinned to the spot in sheer disbelief. And, to his abject horror, his body began to respond to the insistent rubbing between his legs.

He had watched Raffles’s hands set to work on the most intricate locks, marveled at their dexterity and seeming secondary intelligence with burglar pick and cricket ball alike. Should he wonder now that their cousins proved just as talented?

 _I should very well be wondering something!_ Bunny’s mind screamed even as his hands remained frozen in mid-slice over his veal.

And to top everything off, Raffles was currently in the process resuming his shameless flirting with the ivory-frocked woman. Bunny observed with mortification as Raffles leaned in toward her neck to hover at her ear and whisper something that made her laugh that ungodly laugh of hers, all while keeping his eyes on Bunny. As if this surreal scene hadn’t been enough, Bunny was fully hard under the table now; there was no way he could escape with his dignity intact at this point without everyone seeing what had (inexplicably) become of him.

Raffles smiled across the table as he continued dragging his foot with maddening slowness up and down Bunny’s length, which suddenly felt far too constrained in his trousers. Worse, it was starting to feel alarmingly on the very pleasant side, and Bunny tried hard not to splay his legs as a result.

Raffles kept his eyes trained on Bunny’s reactions between bites, smiling as Bunny fought valiantly to keep them in check. Then he curled his toes deftly about Bunny’s balls before sliding his foot up to firmly massage at the head.

“Ooohhh…”

The woman on his left perked up as if she had suddenly smelled gunpowder and turned to Bunny. “Did you say something to me?”

“I-I was just saying ‘ooohhh, this veal is lovely…’”

The lady adopted an expression that conveyed her doubts about his sanity rather well before turning back to the more interesting man on her left. Bunny could feel the blood staining his cheeks. He glared at Raffles, who provocatively licked the sauce from his knife from the base to the sharp tip. He gave the latter an exaggerated flick of the tongue.

Bunny felt himself gaping and quickly looked away. His throat was suddenly quite parched.

Setting his cutlery down with as much care as possible, he reached for his water glass and drained half of it in one shot. Hardly a moment later, the footman was at his elbow with the pitcher. Bunny stiffened in dread. Naturally, at that exact moment, Raffles had done something extraordinary with his nimble toes and Bunny had to savagely bite his inner lip to keep from moaning out across the table. Instead of completely stifling it, however, his action only served to muffle it behind closed lips.

The footman paused with the water pitcher after pouring a measure. “Does sir require something?”

“No! I mean no, nothing, thank you. I’m fine, yes, just fine, thank you,” Bunny stammered, gesturing needlessly with increasingly shaky hands. To his indescribable horror, his elbow had managed to catch the end of his fork and send it over the table’s edge to the carpet below.

“Allow me, sir,” the footman drawled after an ill-concealed sigh and began to bend down for it.

“Wait!” Bunny cried out with such ferocity the waiter and half the table froze. He instantly leaned over to snag up the utensil and wiped at it with his napkin. “There! Ha ha! Good as new! That will be all!”

The servant (along with the guests who had witnessed the scene), offered Bunny an impressively distasteful look but obeyed and moved away, and Bunny wanted to sigh in pure relief. Raffles, however, was not in a mind to let him savor that little victory in peace, and Bunny’s relief became abject agony once more. Bunny fisted his napkin tightly, not knowing what he should do. He was riding dangerously close to the sun now, and it was all just too much. Raffles was too much, brashly playing him like this, making a fool of him in front of everyone. Too much!

“Excuse me!” Bunny suddenly blurted and abandoned the table with such speed the dinner guests barely had time to look to him in astonishment. Bunny couldn’t be bothered to witness the dismayed look that now creased Raffles’s face as he fled from the room toward the bathroom (where a maid had directed him in stunned silence when he asked her its location in nothing short of a bark). 

Once inside the highly scrubbed and decorated room, he shut the door after himself and, not bothering with his cuffs, began to splash cold water from the sink onto his flushed face. He let the water run as he shakily gripped the edges of the basin and stared at the drain, willing his erection to disappear so he could then do the same. He half wondered if everyone had seen after all. Seen and made the logical leap. Perhaps the police were on their way to drag him from the premises. He would be branded a pervert for the rest of his life. Banished from society altogether.

He was just in the middle of this bitter fantasy when a soft rap on the other side of the door made the blood drain from his face. 

“Bunny,” came the wood-muffled but familiar call, “it’s me. Open the door, won’t you?”

The old panic instantly dissolved and in its place came a hot rush of anger. Bunny quickly dried his face and tore open the door to a surprised Raffles. 

“How could you do that to me?” Bunny hissed through his teeth.

Raffles opened his mouth as if making to reply, but he closed it again without uttering a word. Instead he glanced over each shoulder before brusquely pushing Bunny back into the room. He gave the door a good smack with his (reshod) foot after himself, but the heavy thing didn’t close all the way. Raffles either didn’t notice or couldn’t be bothered to care. He had Bunny up hard against the opposite wall near the bathtub now, and Bunny’s breath escaped him as his back connected with it.

“I told them you had been feeling out of sorts all day,” Raffles said in his most thrilling dulcet tones, barely above a murmur, his hands still gripping Bunny’s shoulders and his half-lidded eyes dark. His face was suddenly very close; his lips hovered a scant inch from Bunny’s mouth. “I assure you there was sympathy all around, Bunny. And, naturally, I’ve come to see to you and collect you so that we may be off with everyone’s best wishes for your…speedy recovery.”

In that moment Bunny felt Raffles would kiss him, and his heart sped up so much he could feel every single pound of it. But instead Raffles’s mouth quirked as he relinquished Bunny’s shoulders and set his hands to work at his buttons. Once the fastenings of Bunny’s trousers yawned open for him, he immediately fell to his knees. Raffles’ delight was evident when Bunny’s arousal met him fully once again without much coercion, and he smirked up at Bunny before extracting it from its confines and running his warm tongue gingerly up its entire length. With that action, Bunny found he couldn’t be too upset for being denied a kiss he hadn’t realized he quite desperately had wanted.

“Oh, Bunny, you _were_ eager,” Raffles purred after a giving the head a lavish swirl.

In lieu of Bunny’s lack of words, his jaw simply fell open in response. He watched in nothing less than an incredulous daze as Raffles worshipped his arousal with the Devil’s own tongue and lips, for nothing made from God could possibly be as simultaneously wonderful and wicked as this. He was barely prepared for the brutal shocks of pleasure that thronged his every nerve at Raffles's skilled touch on his naked flesh. While the cruel game at the table had had its own brand of pleasure, this, _this_ was beyond anything he could (and often tried to) imagine. He would not last for long, Bunny knew. He could feel his completion crawling in close already. Raffles’s free hand, having left off fondling the jewels through Bunny’s trouser pocket, suddenly encouraging his balls with short, massaging strokes would certainly see to that.

Bunny swallowed hard and gripped Raffles’s shoulders to steady himself. Bunny then threw his head back into the wall, forgetting it was even there, but not caring as a dull pain blossomed in his skull from the action. Raffles, always the astute one, was sucking him in earnest now, and his mouth managed to take in Bunny’s entire member as he did it. Bunny absently wondered if Raffles had done this sort of thing before; he was entirely too good at it for this to have been the first time. But then again Raffles excelled at everything. Besides, Bunny had never had this type of service before, so he was not one to say anything on the matter other than perhaps expressing his guilty approval of it.

Licking his dry lips, Bunny opened his eyes and immediately something deep in his brain registered the fact that the door still stood ajar; anyone could come to see to them and discover what they were doing at any second. And then they really would be finished. Handed the worst sentence imaginable next to the death penalty. Bunny’s breath hitched as he stared at the door, his body gently rocking against the wall in synch with Raffles’s movements.

“Raffles,” he said, “you…you left the—” But his warning could not be completed. He tried to push Raffles away as another sort of warning, but Raffles would not comply. “Oh god, _Raffles_. I can’t…oh…god…” Bunny moaned desperately and threw his hand up to cover his mouth as he came hard. 

Raffles had to seize and hold Bunny’s hips to keep him up, but he bore Bunny’s release with an elated patience. Once Bunny had expelled his last muffled sigh, Raffles gave his spent member a final caress with his tongue and set to work fixing Bunny’s clothes right again.

Such was his daze that before he knew it, Bunny was breathing again and being led by the arm toward the bathroom door. Not two yards from them, having just surmounted the staircase and paused at their appearance, stood Lady Milburn.

“Oh my, he really wasn’t well at all was he?” she asked with a concerned eye on a rather ruffled-looking Bunny.

“Indeed, thank you for your concern. Though you have our deepest apologies for the interruption to your dinner party, your Ladyship,” Raffles said in a voice that masterfully affected sincerity.

“Not at all. I’m just sorry you feel unwell, Mr. Manders. You’ll both come again in the near future, I hope.”

Bunny, not trusting himself to talk out of anxiety for making one of the barest escapes of their lives, merely smiled weakly at his hostess’ kindness. He allowed Raffles to wrap everything up and lead him by the arm down the stairs to retrieve their things before they were out the door into the cool night air.

Raffles instantly began to laugh once they were situated inside a waiting hansom.

“What’s so funny?” Bunny asked.

“Your face, my dear rabbit! I don’t think I could have affected such a put-upon expression myself if I tried! I believe our alibi is as solid as stone now.”

Bunny huffed in indignation.

“Oh, don’t throw yourself to despair, Bunny. Of course I say this in the highest esteem for your unique talent. Besides,” he continued more quietly, “I daresay we have enough of a haul to keep us in fine whiskey and Sullivans for months to come. Well? Doesn’t that make you happy?”

“Fine,” Bunny all but spat angrily. “You were after my valuable expression the entire time and you got it. Congratulations. No doubt you will enjoy the rewards more than I.” He turned his head away from Raffles to watch the street fly by. To his added despair, his eyes burned with the threat of tears. But he would not allow them to come; he couldn’t bear that particular shame on top of the previous.

Bunny was unprepared to feel Raffles’s hand take his and squeeze it. 

“Bunny, look at me.”

His face scrunching in conflict, Bunny held out and would not obey. Raffles’s other hand was suddenly fixed upon his jaw, forcing his head back around. He was about to protest with an oath, but his lips were all at once smothered by Raffles’s own. Bunny’s eyes widened in surprise as Raffles brazenly kissed him, their only cover being the hansom walls and the night’s unreliable shadows. But he could not be bothered at that moment with concern. Instead Bunny relaxed into Raffles’s body and lifted his arm to pull him closer by the shoulder. His lips melted against Raffles’s as they moved, his tongue singing the pleasure of the touch of another. Raffles’s mouth was hot and firm, leading the dance as ever, and Bunny was not a little disappointed when their embrace broke.

“What I did back there,” Raffles whispered, his breathing slightly labored, “was not a part of any plan. I did it because I wanted to. I did not use you, Bunny. You must believe that.”

Bunny stared into Raffles’s eyes, and even in the poor light he believed Raffles genuine. He couldn’t help smiling. “Then I am happy.”

Raffles smiled in return before straightening up in his seat as the carriage rattled ever closer to home. “As am I.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Raffles kink meme.


End file.
